20 facts about nuclear power
10 min readAug 8, 2022
- Nuclear power is one of the ways to produce energy with low carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The amount of CO2 emitted for the production of 1 kilowatt-hour for solar, wind, and water energy is 10–40 grams, and for nuclear energy — 90–140 grams. Although this is more than “zero waste” types of energy production, it is still significantly less than energy produced using oil, gas, or coal (200 for natural gas, 280 for oil, and 340 for coal).
- In total, 450 nuclear installations have been launched in the world at the moment, which generate 11% of the world’s electricity (as of 2019). Despite the fact that only 30 countries have nuclear power plants, other countries depend on nuclear energy to import it. For example, Italy and Denmark receive 10% of their total electricity consumption from foreign nuclear power plants.
- SNF fission products include radionuclides (radioactive isotopes), which can be successfully used in industry, medicine, and scientific research. Bombs can also be made from spent nuclear fuel.
- Spent nuclear fuel can be processed rather than stored. For example, convert uranium and plutonium into a mixed oxide form (in this form it can be reused in the energy sector). There are special settings for this. For example, the Mayak production association, according to its design capacity, provides processing of up to 400 tons of spent nuclear fuel per year.
